Programming

What's Up With Programming?

Lots of things - many of which we're learning as we go along!

Scheduling

• Programming will begin at 10:00 hours (10:00 am) and, for the most part, end at 18:00 hours (6:00 pm) each day;
• Program items will, for the most part, be 90 minutes long, in two-hour long slots.
• The Masquerade and Hugo Awards Ceremonies will take place earlier in the day than most Western fans are used to:
  • The Hugo Awards ceremony will take place at 18:00 hours (6:00 pm) on Saturday afternoon;
  • The Masquerade will take place at 15:00 hours (3:00 pm) on Sunday afternnon.

Language

Program items will come in several flavors:

• Uni-lingual (English or Japanese);
• "Gist"ed panels: some of the English only or Japanese only panels will be "gisted" i.e., given an informal summary/translation by bilingual fans each day;
• Dual -language panels, with some participants speaking Japanese and others speaking English will also utilize bilingual fans to give the audience the gist of each person's comments.

Programming Items

We hope to be able to include a program item called, "How to Take a Japanese Bath", which may include a tour of a nearby bathhouse.

We'll also have the usual mix of panels, individual presentations, and artist presentations.  We'll hear about the state of Mars exploration, what's new from some publishers, and the history of translating literature written in English into Japanese.  We'll have KaffeeKlatches, and Autographings (and we're still working on Literary Beers).  We'll have solo performances by some of the musicians among us, and the Strange Fannish Division will undoubtedly be scheduling some Filk.  We know that the Japanese will be running Karaoke several evenings running.

Stay tuned for more details!

Who's Going to be on Programming?

We've got a list of many of our program participants posted now, and we'll be updating that information shortly with biographies, pictures, and links to their websites.

We'll also be highlighting different authors, editors, and other participants here between now and the convention.

There will many of the authors and fans you'd expect to see at most worldcons.

• David Brin
• Pat Cadigan
• Robin Hobb
• Ellen Kushner
• Robert Silverberg
• Charles Stross
• Check out the whole list!

We'll also have program participants who are new to Worldcons or who are less-well-known than others:

• Halle Stanford is a Vice-President of The Henson Company.  She's likely to be accompanied by Julianne Bueschler, a master puppeteer with Henson;
• John Davis, the creator of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius;
• Daniel Spector and Kelly Buehler are the proprietors of Traife Buffet Press, which is a small press producing high-end editions of science fiction and fantasy chapbooks;
• Edward Lipsett is one of the co-owners of Kurodahan Press, which focuses on translating Japanese works into English.  It's newest anthology, Speculative Japan: Outstanding Tales of Japanese Science Fiction and Fantasy will be introduced at Worldcon.

Interested in Participating?

If we missed your name or didn't know that you were planning on attending Nippon 2007, and you're still interested in being on programming, please let us know by filling out our Program Participant Volunteer Form.  The sooner we hear from you, the better our chances of being able to put you on some programming.

If you've been on panels before and you think you're ready for leadership, take a look at our Panel Moderator guidelines

Got Ideas?

We've got lots of great ideas for programming - probably more ideas than we're going to be able to use.  But if there's something you'd really like to have people talking about, or a resource you think we may be unaware of, please let us know as soon as possible at progideas@nippon2007.us.

If you've got other questions or information for us, contact us at program@nippon2007.us.  We will be glad to hear from you.